Il National and European Parliament have reached a provisional agreement on some parts of the package money laundering, which aims to protect EU citizens and the financial system from money laundering and terrorist financing.
With the new package, all rules applicable to the private sector will be transferred to a new one regulation; the directive will instead deal with the organization of institutional anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CFT) systems at national level in the Member States.
The provisional agreement on an anti-money laundering regulation will for the first time comprehensively harmonize rules across the EU, closing any gaps used by criminals to launder illicit proceeds or finance terrorist activities through the financial system.
The agreement on the directive will improve the organization of national anti-money laundering systems.
Obligated subjects
The obliged entities, such as financial institutions, banks, real estate agencies, asset management services, gambling houses and operators of game and merchants, play a central gatekeeper role in the AML/CTF framework, as they are uniquely positioned to detect suspicious activity.
The provisional agreement extends the list of obliged entities to new bodies. The new rules will concern the majority of the crypto-asset sector, obliging all crypto-asset service providers to carry out due diligence on their customers. In practice they will have to verify facts and information relating to their customers, as well as report suspicious activities.
Under the agreement, crypto-asset service providers will have to apply customer due diligence measures when carrying out transactions of an amount equal to or greater than EUR 1 000. The agreement adds measures intended to mitigate risks in relation to operations with self-hosted wallets.
The texts are currently being defined and will then be presented to the Member States and the European Parliament for approval. If approved, the texts must be formally adopted by the EU institutions before being published in the Official Journal of the EU and then entering into force. Once the final text is published, EGBA will review it to determine whether it is relevant to the online gaming industry. The completion process may take a few months.
To ease gambling operators to meet the highest industry standards and prepare for the new rules, the association EGBA launched industry guidelines for AML last year. The guidance is sector specific and open to all operators based in the EU.
